A parcel of land owned by the

Katz Family is currently zoned industrial, and the family, along with

John Wieland Homes and Pathway Communities, is asking for the land to

be rezoned residential. They are seeking to build 350 homes on the property.

Of course, because of its [industrial] zoning, the school system has not

accounted for students from this property in its projections. In an effort

to try to get the Planning Commission to accept the rezoning proposal,

Developmental Services Director Jim Williams asked the property owner

to donate a 20-acre school site.

The speakers quoted below are

Phyllis Aguayo (Peachtree City Annexation Task Force member), Jerry Whitaker

(Fayette County Schools' director of facilities planning and land acquisition),

and Peachtree City Planning Commission members Robert Ames, Richard Schumacher

and Wes Saunders. These are selected quotes. To listen to the entire dialogue,

you can order a cassette tape at the Peachtree City Hall for a cost of

$5.

Ms. Aguayo: "Many of us

who were on the task force felt that it was probably inappropriate for

that [Katz property and other parcels northward] industrial strip to be

switched to residential. I would like some assurances that there would

be a way for this not to create a domino effect and have the rest of that

industrial area coming to us requesting rezoning to residential as well."

Mr. Ames: "The way the

schools in Peachtree City are and the schools that our children attend

are really on the verge of being overcrowded or are overcrowded at this

point in time. And as a person who is responsible for the planning of

the community, [I] would like to hear from you how the county board of

education sees the development of the educational system. Can we make

an educated decision tonight to approve this rezoning and not have any

schools built for the next five years or ten years? What is the thinking

of the board of education at this time and is there money to get some

of these schools underway? If a 20-acre school site is given to the county

for an elementary school, does that mean that the elementary school won't

be funded because the voters don't vote for a SPLOST or some other thing

and 20 years from now we will have trailers all over the place with an

empty school site?"

Mr. Whitaker: "Well, the

schools in Peachtree City, except Peachtree City Elementary, are practically

at max now. Peachtree City Elementary has a little bit of room but when

you put the Line Creek Apartments [under construction] and Cedarcroft

[under construction], Wynnmeade and the Katz property proposal in there

you've filled up a school just from that the size of Kedron [elementary].

And we don't have that much space. Right now we have a bond issue that

is proposed before the community that will build three elementary schools

and one was to be built in the Peachtree City area."

Mr. Whitaker (continued): "It

takes us about two years to build a school so you have got that much time

before we would have any relief. If the bond issue did not pass and these

[rezonings and developments] went ahead and were built, you are probably

looking a double sessions. We are just about out of money for buying trailers.

Because when you buy trailers you're adding to the core facilities of

a school and you've over taxed those the lunchrooms, the hallways, the

restrooms, everything. Once they are overtaxed, we cannot add to those."

Mr. Ames: "What about

the middle schools and the high schools? Aren't they pretty close?"

Mr. Whitaker: "Booth has

13 trailers there right now. And it has maxed core facilities. We are

proposing to put 18 new rooms on Booth. We have already allocated the

funding for that. McIntosh, we looked at adding on to that but the core

facilities at McIntosh just will not take anything else."

Mr. Whitaker (continued): "Fayette

County High School is at 2,100 students and their core facilities geared

them to 1,850. So they are already over their core facility. You could

do some redistricting with the high schools to help solve that problem

for a short period but once you start building a high school it takes

four years to bring that up and have students going into the front door.

So you look at the growth that we're looking at in Fayette County over

the next four to five years and it's tremendous when you add all the rezonings

in the cities and the county together."

A motion was made and seconded

for the approval of the rezoning and the discussion continued.

Mr. Ames: "I have really

thought long and hard about this particular rezoning. It's my goal to

make sure that we maximize the developments within Peachtree City. And

listening, especially to the board of education tonight, and even though

our land use plan recognizes this as a residential use, we have lots of

other residential uses that are coming on line that the school board really

hasn't accounted for yet. And there are more that are empty that will

be, that are zoned properly, that will be coming on line."

Mr. Ames (continued): "In

principal, I am not against this [Katz property] being a residential area.

At this point in time, I feel like our city and the county are not ready

to service it. So I am reluctant, at this point, to add any density like

this to our services and schools, sewers and so forth."

Dr. Schumacher: "Although

I seconded the motion so that we could discuss it, I share Mr. Ames viewpoint.

I am really concerned about every school I see in Fayette County. The

multiple trailers, they're really stressed and until we know that the

county can begin to fund the schools and that's still up in the air because

we do not know if the bond referendum is going to be approved. So I am

very hesitant to move on this at this time and just compound our problems.

Mr. Saunders: "I do understand,

I mean, like lots of folks here, I've got two children in the Fayette

County public schools."

The rezoning was defeated.

However, I believe that the Planning Commission members were under the

false impression that if the school bond referendum passes in November

that the school system will be at the break-even point with students versus

facilities. In reality the school system will still be behind, because

new home starts are at a blistering pace in Fayette County. The EFF proposal

will allow the school system to plan on "real" numbers and being

able to do so will keep us afloat, unlike other school systems.

Fayette County has the opportunity

to be the lone county in metro Atlanta to avoid the ruin of its school

system by having residential development outpace its infrastructure.

Steve Brown

[email protected]

Peachtree City